24 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN S ASSOCIATION. 



In 1850, an Illinois historian wrote: "The dairying interest 

 of Illinois must doubtless be very great. The value ot the but- 

 ter and cheese of Illinois annually is $1,675,000; each cow pro- 

 ducing on an average for her owner about $5.50. Butter 

 in the Chicago market averages about 22 cents per pound. 

 Cheese usually sells for from 8 to 12^ cents." 



The product of the dairy cow of 1850 in Illinois is discounted 

 more than ten-fold by the cows of 1887. Here lies the true ex- 

 planation — the exact reason for the wonderful figures we are 

 able to bring forth to-day through painstaking efforts and years 

 of plodding, breeding and study, the dairyman of '87 has changed 

 the conditions and capacity of the great and only original butter 

 machine, the Queen Cow. 



A single statement of facts about the experience of men who 

 have followed the path of dairying earnestly should certainly be 

 sufficient to satisfy anyone interested enough in the matter to 

 stop and figure a moment that it must, as a matter of course, 

 take the lead in sections of the country stuated like this, 

 where land has become valuable and soiling should be a rule 

 instead of an exception. After figuring the value of the actual 

 products of the dairy, if you will add to it $39.00 for every 

 one thousand dollars sold, which amount represents the differ- 

 ence of loss to to the farm soil between selling $1,000 worth of 

 beef and $1,000 worth of butter, and a further additon of at 

 least $7.00 per cow for the annual product of manure; with a 

 reasonable amount for the value of skim-milk in making pork, 

 you will arrive at a more legitimate estimate of the value of the 

 dairy. And the reason for statements from well informed cor- 

 respondents that "dairying is at a low ebb in this section " will 

 soon have no reason to exist, for it is only natural to suppose, 

 that you, my hearers, are intelligent men, and stand ready to 

 adopt any system of work that will bring to you better and 

 surer profits, especially so when you can reason it and figure 

 out for yourselves. 



It is only a few years since the wheat crop was considered 

 the criterion of civilization of the country and King Cotton was 



